Movie Review: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Nick Broomfield.

 

Nick Broomfield’s Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is not like his other ampersand documentary (Kurt & Courtney and Biggie & Tupac), which dug into the deaths of famous musicians, and found a lot of conspiracy theories – some far more interesting than others. In fact, I ‘m not sure I knew that Broomfield was capable of making a film quite this gentle and thoughtful. He cannot fully resist inserting himself into the film of course – he never can – but it’s far more restrained than any of his other documentaries. His documentary is about the love story between Leonard Cohen and his girlfriend/muse Marianne Ihlen – a Norwegian woman Cohen met and fell in love with as poor, aspiring writer on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s – and was involved with for years and years, even after he became a drug and sex fueled rock star, who never met a drug he didn’t take or a woman he didn’t fuck. It many ways it’s a sad film – Marianne never really stopped loving Cohen, or at least, she could never fully escape. When you inspire one of Cohen’s best known songs – So Long Marianne (and Bird on a Wire for that matter) – and when Cohen continued to reference for years. It is about these two people – how Cohen thrived, and how Ihlen suffered – in part because being a muse can be nice, but it’s also lonely – and you don’t exactly get royalties.

 

Broomfield had a personal connection with Ihlen – they were friends, and for a brief time they were “lovers” as he informs us (too much information Nick!) – and he clearly has affection for the now passed Ihlen. The problem with a documentary like this though is that it’s so much easier to make a film about Cohen than it is about Ihlen. And so, much of the runtime is devoted to Cohen’s story – stuff you probably know fairly well. His early novels, before being taking under the wing of Judy Collins, and becoming a musician. How that career took off, how he took many drugs which fueled the chaos on the road, which was always full of women. His performance on the Isle of Wight. The horrible collaboration with Phil Specter – the comeback with Hallelujah. His time in a monastery – and then losing all his money, and having to go back on tour in his 70s because he had no money, etc. The chances are if you wanted to know all this about Leonard Cohen, you probably already did. I will say that as someone who has always liked Cohen’s music – but hasn’t really dug into biography that deeply, some of it was new to me – but a lot of it wasn’t. Still, the film is a treasure trove of archival footage of Cohen – and concert footage. And the film does a good job of putting some of these famous songs into context. I think the film does a good job of painting a portrait of Cohen – of what made him a genius writer, what made him an irresistible ladies man, and what made him more than a little bit of an asshole – who was impossible to be with. It is less perfect at painting a portrait of Ihlen – in large part of course because there isn’t the same kind of footage of her, and by the time Broomfield made the film she was dead (so was Cohen). So Broomfield has to rely on his own memories, and the interviews with those her knew her.

 

But what Broomfield really does succeed in doing in painting a portrait of Hydra in the 1960s – which was a crazy, drug and sex fueled place. When Cohen arrived in the 1960s, it was full of poor, starving artists – and you could live there for next to nothing. It was during this time when Cohen and Ihlen’s love was at its peak. They lived together with her young son Axel. Cohen sat in the son, and wrote his now legendary novel Beautiful Losers in a drug induced haze, with Ihlen supporting him the whole time. It was once he left, that the long, protracted end start. But as Broomfield makes clear, the aftermath of Hydra was felt by a lot of people who were there. The number of people who died after leaving of suicide or drugs is staggering. The children of these relationships often had trouble adjusting to the real world – including Ihlen’s own son, who has spent most of his adult life institutionalized. The film is a fairly damning portrait of the 1960s in general – a time in which some people like Cohen thrived, but many others did not. It is a far cry from the romanticization of the 1960s we see more often than not.

 

And then, in the final act, the film hits some emotional moments I didn’t quite see coming. Even if at the end of the movie, I’m still not entirely sure I know Ihlen – I have a feeling that is the way she wanted it. The film doesn’t go into too many details of her life after she left Hydra and returned to Norway – and that seems appropriate. We can argue if the scenes in the hospital with Marianne are appropriate or not – if they are an invasion of privacy – but it does seem like it wasn’t shot by Broomfield – but by those who knew and loved her, and shared it with him.

 

I do think the film is successful at least making us consider what it must be like to know someone like Leonard Cohen – to love him. Marianne wanted to be with Cohen – but as a friend says, you cannot be with Leonard. And that’s true. And so to love him is only going to end in heartbreak.